Thief

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 combination delivers a playable but aging experience in Thief, with performance that scales predictably with resolution and settings. The data indicates a system where the GPU is the primary bottleneck, especially at higher resolutions, while the CPU’s substantial headroom remains largely untapped.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear and consistent drop as resolution increases, which points directly to the graphics card as the limiting factor. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combo averages 75.7 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same High preset, the average falls to 53 FPS, a reduction of roughly 30%. The jump to 3840x2160 is far more punishing, with the average plummeting to 30.6 FPS—a 60% decrease from the 1080p result. This pattern is typical of a GPU-bound scenario, where the pixel throughput demand of 4K overwhelms the GTX 1070’s capabilities.

The scaling is even more telling at lower settings. With Low settings, the 1080p average is 124.5 FPS, which drops to 86.6 FPS at 1440p and then to 48.7 FPS at 4K. The 4K Low result is still significantly lower than the 1080p High result, indicating that even when the graphical load is reduced, the sheer pixel count at 4K remains a formidable challenge for this GPU. The fact that the 4K Low frame rate (48.7 FPS) is lower than the 1440p Ultra frame rate (47.5 FPS) but similar suggests that the GPU is saturated by resolution more than by the specific quality preset.

This behavior strongly suggests that the Ryzen 9 9900X is not the constraining component in this pairing. The CPU, with its 12 cores and 24 threads, is capable of far higher frame rates in this title. The benchmark results indicate that the GTX 1070’s 8 GB of VRAM and its 256-bit memory interface are the primary determinants of performance, as the frame rate collapses when the resolution increases, regardless of the CPU’s immense processing power. For a 4K experience, the data shows this combo falls below the 60 FPS threshold even on Low settings, making 1440p the realistic ceiling for smooth gameplay.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 is a Pascal-generation card with a base clock of 1506 MHz and a boost clock of 1683 MHz. Its memory configuration consists of 8 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 256.3 GB/s. These specifications are central to understanding its performance in Thief. The game’s engine, released in 2014, is not particularly demanding on CPU resources, but it does stress the GPU’s fill rate and memory bandwidth at higher resolutions.

In the measured data, the GTX 1070’s strengths and weaknesses are evident. At 1920x1080, the card has enough raw power and bandwidth to produce excellent frame rates, with the Ultra preset still achieving 72.7 FPS. However, the transition to 2560x1440 exposes the memory bandwidth limitation. The High preset drops to 53 FPS, and the Ultra preset falls to 47.5 FPS. This indicates that the 256.3 GB/s bandwidth is insufficient to feed the shader units efficiently at this resolution, causing a performance cliff that is steeper than what would be expected from a purely clock-speed-driven scaling.

The 8 GB VRAM capacity is not a limiting factor at these resolutions in Thief, as the game’s texture requirements are modest by modern standards. Instead, the bottleneck is the memory bus and the overall shading power of the GP104 chip. The GPU’s 1920 shading units are capable of producing 6.463 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, but this power is throttled by the memory subsystem at higher resolutions. The data confirms this: the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 51.8 FPS (124.5 vs. 72.7), while at 4K the difference shrinks to 17.7 FPS (48.7 vs. 31.0). This compression of the performance gap at higher resolutions is a classic sign of a bandwidth-limited GPU, where the pixel fill rate becomes the dominant constraint.

How This Combo Ranks

In the benchmark database, this specific pairing of the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 ranks 1394 out of 1642 tested combinations in Thief. This places it in the bottom 15% of all tested systems, a low position that is almost entirely due to the GPU’s age and its 51st percentile ranking among all GPUs. The CPU, by contrast, is a top-tier part, ranking in the 94th percentile against all CPUs.

The disparity between the components is stark. The Ryzen 9 9900X’s average benchmark score of 54450 places it just 0.4% behind the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D and 0.7% ahead of the Intel Core i7-14700F. This level of CPU performance is wasted in this configuration, as the GTX 1070’s average score of 12331 is only 0.7% ahead of the NVIDIA Quadro K4200 and 1.4% behind the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER. The data suggests that the CPU is not the limiting factor, and the combo’s low rank is a direct consequence of pairing a modern flagship processor with a mid-range GPU from 2016.

This ranking implies that for Thief, the user would see almost identical performance with a much weaker CPU, as the GTX 1070 is the sole arbiter of frame rates. The combo’s rank is a reflection of the GPU’s limitations, not the CPU’s capabilities. The 1642-combo pool includes systems with far more balanced pairings, which is why this configuration falls so low. It is a clear example of a bottlenecked system where the GPU is holding back the entire platform.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings?

A: The average FPS at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings is 72.7 FPS.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in this configuration?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the bottleneck. The frame rates drop drastically with resolution increases, while the CPU’s benchmark scores (94th percentile) are far higher than the GPU’s (51st percentile), suggesting the GTX 1070 limits performance.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming in Thief?

A: At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 31.0 on Ultra to 48.7 on Low. This is below the 60 FPS target for smooth gameplay, even at the lowest settings.

Q: How does the Ryzen 9 9900X compare to its nearest rival?

A: The Ryzen 9 9900X has an average benchmark score of 54450, which is 0.4% lower than the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D and 0.7% higher than the Intel Core i7-14700F.

Q: What is the memory configuration of the GTX 1070?

A: The GTX 1070 features 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus with a bandwidth of 256.3 GB/s.

Q: What is the combo's rank in this game?

A: This specific combination ranks 1394 out of 1642 tested combos in Thief.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The following table details the exact average FPS measurements for the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 combination in Thief.

| Resolution | Settings | Avg FPS |

| :--------- | :------- | -------: |

| 3840x2160 | High | 30.6 |

| 3840x2160 | Low | 48.7 |

| 3840x2160 | Medium | 39.7 |

| 3840x2160 | Ultra | 31.0 |

| 2560x1440 | High | 53.0 |

| 2560x1440 | Low | 86.6 |

| 2560x1440 | Medium | 68.3 |

| 2560x1440 | Ultra | 47.5 |

| 1920x1080 | High | 75.7 |

| 1920x1080 | Low | 124.5 |

| 1920x1080 | Medium | 95.7 |

| 1920x1080 | Ultra | 72.7 |

The data shows a clear hierarchy: performance is best at 1080p, acceptable at 1440p for medium settings, and struggles at 4K. The GTX 1070’s limitations are most apparent in the 4K results, where even the Low preset cannot maintain 50 FPS. For users targeting high refresh rates, only the 1080p Low preset exceeds 120 FPS, while the 1080p Medium preset achieves 95.7 FPS. The 1440p results are playable but require dropping to Medium settings to stay above 60 FPS, as the High preset only reaches 53 FPS.